I just don't get it.

[Damona]

Agreed on pretty much all accounts. As for the community getting hooked on relatively trivial things, I mean... just look at how quickly pages on vanity gear threads fill up, while a thread on expansion design topics or game mechanics flounder and sink.

(Granted, there's a lot of principle involved in those vanity threads.)

If you consider that it also happens ingame even and people just straight out ignore you or just reply to you casually with the usual "TAKE A BREAK M8!", it is crazy yea. I could easily turn this into a debate about money/subfee but that would just derail the topic into something far off.

The turning point for the game will be 4.0 anyways, at least for me. If they go the whole Heavensward route again like they are doing now, I'll gladly quit.
Farming dem ilvls and dem weeklys for a while is fun, but not forever.

But I admit, I am a bit jaded in that regard and even if I dont need to place my fancy FFXI nostalgia goggles all around the place and I am fully aware of the flaws this game always had. But at least after all that grind and after all those hours of finding people for stuff, I felt like I accomplished something. Not only Gearwise, also story fights that were really hard back then etc.

Also a reason why I miss the old Vault when it was not nerfed to the ground and a decent Challange. Stuff like that.
Or clearing T9/T13 unsynced like a scrub and it still felt like a "I DID ET" moment but not running through alex and... yeah uh... holding off teh illuminateh, (Loved Manipulator and Brute Justice though!) but we'll see what the final part will bring.

The one thing I will not deny though, I really loved thordan ex, even with almost 205-210 and hating it at first, it felt like I did something. One of the few rewarding things in my eyes but primal fights are always nice, even if they are a script show and rarely have any randomish moments to them.